The Guild Wars 2 Facebook Page announces ArenaNet is temporarily curtailing their own sales of Guild Wars 2 to prevent the success of their MMORPG sequel from overwhelming the system (thanks nin), though the game is still being sold by everyone else. Word is: "Effective immediately we have disabled sales via buy.guildwars2.com. To be clear, box and digital sales are still available via our retail partners. We are tracking our concurrency closely while expanding our infrastructure. We’ll re-enable first-party digital sales as soon as we feel that we can do so safely." Also, Guildwars2 reddit has word on an exploit in the game (thanks Eurogamer), saying this has resulted in permanent bans, though they are offering amnesty for those who request it:

We also believe and respect that people make mistakes. This is in fact the first example of a widespread exploit in the game. With this in mind, we are offering the members of our community who exploited the game a second chance to repair the damage that has been done.

Thus, just this once, we will offer to convert permanent bans to 72-hour suspensions. Should those involved want to accept this offer of reinstatement, contact us on our support website--support.guildwars2.com—and submit a ticket through the "Ask a Question" tab. Please use the subject heading of "Karma Weapons Exploit Appeal", then confirm in the body of your ticket that you will delete any items/currency that you gained from the exploit. You should submit only one ticket. Once you have done so, we will lower your ban to 72 hours, and following your re-activation we will check your account to make sure that you have honored your commitment. If that commitment is not honored, we will re-terminate the account.

This is a first and final warning. Moving forward, please make sure you that when you see an exploitable part of the game, you report it and do not attempt to benefit from it.

Jackplug wrote on Sep 1, 2012, 03:45:Isn't their fault they found an exploit, if Nsoft knows about this then why didn't they just fix the exploit instead of banning everyone that used it.

They did fix the exploit. There will be more exploits. In lieu of going back in time and fixing exploits before people use them to break the economy, the best they can do at this point is discourage people from trying to use them when they notice them. I don't think they have technology set up to do good rollbacks, which is a shame. The best way to fix problems like this would be to undo transactions that were results of an exploit, but that's pretty tricky to do, especially on such a large scale and if they didn't have the tech set up beforehand. I hope they are working on something like that for the future.

OpticNerve wrote on Sep 1, 2012, 04:00:For those of you who are brand-spanking new, Arenanet's posted up a getting started guide which covers some of the basics: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/manual/

As for the banning thing, I think Arenanet was pretty leniant about this. They didn't perm ban anyone who bought one of those exploited Norn cultural weapons a few small times (those got 72-hour banned). We're talking about people who bought and sold them THOUSANDS of times, thus messing up the economy (most likely buying store gems with all that gold). These guys went in knowing full-well that they were exploiting something broken.

The reason why Arenanet didn't simply do a roll-back is that they most likely wanted to put out a message to players that they were taking a hard stance on people abusing exploits. In the end, we players who simply want to play for fun benefit by having less assholes messing up the game economy in various ways (possibly inflating the gold --> gems so that the cost of gems via gold is outrageous). I know that after this episode, some guildies decided to err on the side of caution and report various exploits (sigil of speed perma-quickness for example) instead of using them for gain.

there's a random 404/503 clusterfuck going on with that guide right now. looks promising though =)

Muscular Beaver wrote on Sep 1, 2012, 06:22:There also seems to be a hacking problem. My account (even though I havent used it since GW1 start) has the email changed. I got all the confirmation emails, but never clicked them actually.So now my email is changed and I cant access that account anymore. No problem, since it just bogus data in it and no game associated with it, but I did a quick search about this and there seem to be a lot of others with the same problem, with an active GW2 account.

No official statement yet, those people havent even got a reply back from support.

I got the emails too, except it appears to be for my old Guild Wars 1 account I haven't touched in two years. I don't own or have a GW2 account. I changed my various important passwords for things just to be safe, including Steam where I bought the game from.

There also seems to be a hacking problem. My account (even though I havent used it since GW1 start) has the email changed. I got all the confirmation emails, but never clicked them actually.So now my email is changed and I cant access that account anymore. No problem, since it just bogus data in it and no game associated with it, but I did a quick search about this and there seem to be a lot of others with the same problem, with an active GW2 account.

No official statement yet, those people havent even got a reply back from support.

Waiting for BIS to come back to their senses and do a real ArmA 2 successor.

As for the banning thing, I think Arenanet was pretty leniant about this. They didn't perm ban anyone who bought one of those exploited Norn cultural weapons a few small times (those got 72-hour banned). We're talking about people who bought and sold them THOUSANDS of times, thus messing up the economy (most likely buying store gems with all that gold). These guys went in knowing full-well that they were exploiting something broken.

The reason why Arenanet didn't simply do a roll-back is that they most likely wanted to put out a message to players that they were taking a hard stance on people abusing exploits. In the end, we players who simply want to play for fun benefit by having less assholes messing up the game economy in various ways (possibly inflating the gold --> gems so that the cost of gems via gold is outrageous). I know that after this episode, some guildies decided to err on the side of caution and report various exploits (sigil of speed perma-quickness for example) instead of using them for gain.

NegaDeath wrote on Sep 1, 2012, 03:40:Well killed some worms, helped kill a really really big worm, wandered around totally lost. Made the mistake of going into the city, looked at the size of the map and turned around right back into farmville. Fun so far.

I found all the stuff in the city, it was fun. Took three hours, but it was fun.

Mordecai Walfish wrote on Sep 1, 2012, 01:09:I wonder, is it purely sales success?.. Or is retail not selling well and this is possibly an attempt to bolster those sales and move some volume off shelves around the country?

Either way, it's an opportunity to give themselves some advertisement about a thriving player-base to join in to..

/tinfoilhat

No, they came out before release and said they would do this if the load capacity got to a point where they felt it would impact the players enjoyment. I have no problem believing the game is selling gang busters, it is one of the few large release entries in the market this year that didn't disappoint.

Let's put it this way: When I was asked to pick a server, there were three Low pop servers, in Europe, about five medium pop servers, four in Europe and one in the US, and the rest was High and Full. (About fifty-fifty on each.)

So yeah, I have no problem believing the game is full. Any event I come across, there will be a dozen people zerging it within minutes. Which is good, because trying to kill that fucking Champion Wasp Queen by myself really wasn't working very well.

Well killed some worms, helped kill a really really big worm, wandered around totally lost. Made the mistake of going into the city, looked at the size of the map and turned around right back into farmville. Fun so far.

Well, played for about 8 hours or so. Made a Human Thief, and found it much more enjoyable to play. Pistol/Dagger is the shit.

Thanks for all the hints and tips, people.

I still need to figure out how to get invited into the guild.

Btw, for those who are new, apparently you can be in the guild even while you're on a different server. Most servers seem to be full now, so just grab another one. I got into Tarnished Coast just in time, I think.

Mordecai Walfish wrote on Sep 1, 2012, 01:09:I wonder, is it purely sales success?.. Or is retail not selling well and this is possibly an attempt to bolster those sales and move some volume off shelves around the country?

Either way, it's an opportunity to give themselves some advertisement about a thriving player-base to join in to..

/tinfoilhat

No, they came out before release and said they would do this if the load capacity got to a point where they felt it would impact the players enjoyment. I have no problem believing the game is selling gang busters, it is one of the few large release entries in the market this year that didn't disappoint.

Mordecai Walfish wrote on Sep 1, 2012, 01:35:On another note this will be the first MMO I've gotten into since Ultima Online (which I played from early beta until maybe 2 years after release).. I have a feeling I'm going to be even more confused than Creston, LOL

I'm in a similar situation, haven't played an MMO since the SW Galaxies beta test. If you see a guy walk off a cliff into the maw of a beast from the underdark that might be me.

Edit: Never mind that ones full. Quite a few are full, guess the game really is popular. Borlis pass I go.

A friend on Mumble recommended that I make a char on Stormbluff Isle.. so I guess I'll be trying that one..

Mordecai Walfish wrote on Sep 1, 2012, 01:35:On another note this will be the first MMO I've gotten into since Ultima Online (which I played from early beta until maybe 2 years after release).. I have a feeling I'm going to be even more confused than Creston, LOL

I'm in a similar situation, haven't played an MMO since the SW Galaxies beta test. If you see a guy walk off a cliff into the maw of a beast from the underdark that might be me.

Edit: Never mind that ones full. Quite a few are full, guess the game really is popular. Borlis pass I go.

Mordecai Walfish wrote on Sep 1, 2012, 01:09:I wonder, is it purely sales success?.. Or is retail not selling well and this is possibly an attempt to bolster those sales and move some volume off shelves around the country?

Either way, it's an opportunity to give themselves some advertisement about a thriving player-base to join in to.. /tinfoilhat

I'm assuming they would get a bigger profit from a direct digital sale than a boxed copy from a store. Under normal circumstances, the last thing they'd want to do is turn off digital direct sales.

They would get more profit from digital, yes. But wouldnt they get a larger return on investment if they moved all those physical copies they had to manufacture instead of having them linger in stores and eventually get sent back because *everyone* is ordering digital versions, usually paying less than for retail..

The idea only popped in my head because I was at a store earlier and picked up a copy as an impulse buy, and noticed that it looked like none were missing from the shelves, everything fully stocked.. on the first Friday after release.. and a holiday weekend..

On another note this will be the first MMO I've gotten into since Ultima Online (which I played from early beta until maybe 2 years after release).. I have a feeling I'm going to be even more confused than Creston, LOL

What server you guys recommend/play on? I still haven't even rolled my 1st char ^_^ The weekend's here though.. yay!!

EDIT: D'oh just saw the post about Tarnished Coast.. is it possible to have chars on multiple servers? Man I really need to RTFM. heheh

Mordecai Walfish wrote on Sep 1, 2012, 01:09:I wonder, is it purely sales success?.. Or is retail not selling well and this is possibly an attempt to bolster those sales and move some volume off shelves around the country?

Either way, it's an opportunity to give themselves some advertisement about a thriving player-base to join in to.. /tinfoilhat

I'm assuming they would get a bigger profit from a direct digital sale than a boxed copy from a store. Under normal circumstances, the last thing they'd want to do is turn off digital direct sales.